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The Scottish government said it “never doubted” the safety of the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber following reports that Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi ordered the attack.
Terminally-ill Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was freed from prison in Scotland and allowed to return to Libya on compassionate grounds in August 2009.
He is the only man to have been convicted of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 on December 21 1988 which killed 270 people.
Yesterday a Swedish newspaper reported that Col Gaddafi had personally ordered the bombing.
The Expressen said Libya's former justice secretary Mustafa Abdel-Jalil told their correspondent in Libya: “I have proof that Gaddafi gave the order about Lockerbie. To hide it, he did everything in his power to get Megrahi back from Scotland.”
The comments in the paper were translated from Arabic to Swedish. Mr Abdel-Jalil has stepped down as justice minister in protest at the violence against anti-government demonstrators in Libya.
A statement in response from the Scottish government, which made the decision to release al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds, said: “Ministers have never doubted the safety of the conviction.”
An official report published earlier this month said the former UK government did “all it could” to help Libya secure al-Megrahi's release.
Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell concluded that a policy was “progressively developed” by Labour to facilitate the Libyans in their appeal to the Scottish |government to release al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds.
Scottish Conservative deputy leader Murdo Fraser said following yesterday's allegation: “Given the events of recent days many people will find this a disturbing but believable claim.
“If true, it makes all the more questionable the role of the last Labour Government's drive to do all it could to send al-Megrahi back to Tripoli.”
Pamela Dix, from the group UK Families Flight 103, who lost her brother Peter in the bombing, said: “If this is true, it is shocking. It really rocks to the core the way that the UK Government has dealt with the whole Lockerbie issue, which is to sweep it under the carpet.”
